do we trust Karl Rove to be able to tell which future candidates will be Rand Pauls, and which will be Christine O’Donnells?

No, but it shouldn’t be hard. If we stop playing games here, all we need to do is look for a real record of votes and leadership on controversies, to see who is strong and has leadership ability and conservative principles.

Did the politician ban guns, or balance budgets? If they haven’t done either, then those who have are more qualified. Our politics experts don’t prefer this method because it eliminates the game and mystery, and also their power, which is based on ‘electability’. We have been preferring electability to accomplishments for so long. The result is we lose elections. It’s surreal.

to the extent Rove wants to make the world safe for douchebags like Dick Lugar this is bad

to the extent Rove wants to make the world safe from douchebags like Richard Mourdock this is good

and even though his record suggests that he’s simply too inept to be the man for this job people are willing to shovel obscene amounts of money at him, which suggests there’s a substantial market for what he’s selling

Rove is an idiot – one of the most overrated political advisers of all time. And so, I do not trust him to “be able to tell which future candidates will be Rand Pauls, and which will be Christine O’Donnells”.

On the other hand, I don’t really trust anyone else either. Certainly not the GOP primary voters.

everything you just said is not correct. The problem I have with the “people” at the top of the tea party organizations not the millions who are fed up but those who want to be the next rove is that they are:

F@cking Liars, pure and simple.

Todd Akin got there because the tea party supported a candidate even worse than him shoving out the vote for two other very qualified candidates.

First Rubio was never a Tea PArty member and neither was Scott Brown, thoe people were coached and funded by Rove and people like Rove who agree.

Johnson from Wisconsin also was not never was Tea Party – Tea PArty claimed him supported him, he thanked them he praised them but he wasnt picked by them, funded by them, he was just an ordinary person with an extrordinary gift.

Gary, these “Tea Party” candidates are not worthy of you and the massess of concerned Tea Party sympathizers, they are also rans who have been soundly rejected before who are falsely embracing a standard by spouting the right buzz words at the right time, like germany in the 20′s

And before the flaring starts no Tea Party “organizers/leaders” people are not Nazi’s, but they are using the same Huey Long, FDR, Goebbels tactics of claiming, dividing, by these divisive, disengenious, extreme but subjective purity tests, and general just outright Michelle Malkin/Palin style name calling.

Candidates these people dont like they call “crony capitalists” “old boy network” “insiders” “establishment” – me what have they done – nothing thats right nothing.

But alot of socialist/facist/elistist name calling. And they damn well know the people they are trashing are good people, people on their side.

We need more politicians with integrity, intelligence and honesty and fewer has been washed up loser political advisors who should maybe think about retiring before they wind up wearing a tar and feather suit.

I misspoke earlier when I said ” If they haven’t done either, then those who have are more qualified. ”

That’s actually the core of the controversy. Was O’Donnell more qualified as someone who had never accomplished anything on policy than someone who had gone the wrong way on policy?

That’s a tough call, and most of those who supported O’Donnell realized there was a huge risk of her being a flake, but also said they felt this was better than the sure risk of Castle being too moderate or ‘progressive’ (I hate our orwellian label system).

I came to this conclusion after that episode, but I think a lot of us are taking the risks in order to send a message to the GOP, the established politicians, the pundits: we will chose anybody over Republicans who go along with current ruinous policies of spending and government intrusion.

That O’Donnell was a striking example of rejecting a ‘RINO’ wasn’t a bug.

Before we go too far in the current sport of Rove-bashing, it would behoove all of us to remember that Karl Rove knew how to get conservative voters to the polls. Romney’s people had no clue, and that’s a major reason why we are going to suffer through four more years of Obama.

Let it be agreed that ‘leaderless grassroots nmovements’ both attract carpetbaggers like Rove, Armey(who brought a gun to work the week of his denouement), etc., and self-appointed representatives of the hoi polloi who may bring value but are as unreliable as the cats they herd.

Michele Bachmann might be strained gnat of the latter(her excesses are greatly exaggerated).

“everything you just said is not correct”

Then perhaps you’d care to address an item or two with which you take exception.

Todd Akin got the whole of the f*ckwit vote, a smattering of baggers who in the main were divided by Brunner and Steelman whom you do not describe.

Johnson, indeed, is as you describe. Your point, however, escapes me.

Scott Brown, meh. Rubio, you’d better give us a timeline Squirrel Cache. Rubio came out of nowhere to crush Crist’s hopes. If Rove ended on board it wasn’t courage that brought him.

Cruz, Paul, et alia, owe Baggers plenty and admit same within recent weeks. Currently they are the only Senators worth their salt.

Now, take a few deep breaths, perhaps you can find a reasoned cause to emote.

Rove was part of an administration that could have and should have gotten spending under control. They could have and should have gotten some kind of voter integrity reform through.

They are the reason the GOP has no credibility on balancing the budget. They were smarter than the Romney campaign, I will grant, but they are the weight that ultimately broke the GOP.

They were only 150 billion away from a balanced budget at times. Imagine if they had cut spending and kept the budget balanced! Eventually the democrats would have won power and undone the progress, but then the American people would have a choice between driving away from the cliff or driving over the cliff. Right now they have choices over how fast to drive over the cliff, and it’s just not enough to beat the moochers.

“[no] Tea Party “organizers/leaders” people are not Nazi’s, but they are using the same Huey Long, FDR, Goebbels tactics of claiming, dividing, by these divisive, disengenious, extreme but subjective purity tests, and general just outright Michelle Malkin/Palin style name calling.”

Personally, I do not proof what I write, and no doubt, it shows. This sentence, its burden of implication, is just grist for the mill.

Rather than take up its problems, how’s about you just re-write it and we’ll forget the offense(s).

I don’t want Karl Rove picking candidates any more than I want Pelosi picking them. How about we run peole with principles, someone that can communicate said principles, and doesn’t think that the Constitution is subject to reasoned debate and compromise, or scared that if they don’t play nice, the MFM might not be fair to them.

“And before the flaring starts no Tea Party “organizers/leaders” people are not Nazi’s, but they are using the same Huey Long, FDR, Goebbels tactics of claiming, dividing, by these divisive, disengenious, extreme but subjective purity tests, and general just outright Michelle Malkin/Palin style name calling.”

EPWJ – As usual, the spittle flecked name calling seems to be coming from you as reflected through the invocation of the names in your comment above. Control yourself, cowboy.

Please help me, I can’t find any listing for the National TEA Party, and their National Leaders, or affiliates.
Do they have a national central committee like the Dems, and GOP?
Do they have a National Chairman?

Uh…No, we don’t. We don’t trust a single f#@king thing that comes out of Rove’s fat pie hole. He’s just trying to make nice with the Tea Party because every conservative in the country is running from him like the Hanta virus.

And if there is any justice in this world, he will have a stroke in the middle of a debate on Fox News in front of the whole nation. That way, we’ll have proof and hundreds of youtube videos for posterity.

Never forget the GOP establishment gave us Dede Scozzafava. Let them pick the candidates and they’ll keep right on doing the same things they always do, following the same procedures, kissing the same asses, and yet expecting different results – and blaming the TEA Party, or Sarah Palin’s bouncing baby boy.

Imagine if they had cut spending and kept the budget balanced! Eventually the democrats would have won power and undone the progress…

Imagine indeed. Of course, they inherited a balanced budget from Democrats and immediately trashed it, but just because the second sentence requires as much imagination as the first doesn’t mean the first one ain’t valid.

I mean, in the recent campaign where the Republicans idea of budget cutting was to increase defense spending, provide another tax cut for wealthier people (taking their presidential candidate’s tax rate to 0%), and balance the budget in Ryan’s estimate in 28 years, one wonders where Dustin would get the idea that republicans were ever responsible for the budget.

16. Before we go too far in the current sport of Rove-bashing, it would behoove all of us to remember that Karl Rove knew how to get conservative voters to the polls. Romney’s people had no clue, and that’s a major reason why we are going to suffer through four more years of Obama.

Comment by JVW (4826a9) — 2/19/2013 @ 9:20 am

I have to disagree. Rove engineered some mighty slim victories, that’s about it. His best showing was in 2004 when he eked out a win with 50.7% of the vote.

He does his usual analysis of the data of how that polled. The same kind of analysis that made him 100% wrong on election night.

There’s nothing conservative about big government programs, but Rove believes in “compassionate conservatism.” Which is really liberalism.

He represents all that’s wrong with the GOP. Starting with giving the back of his hand to conservatives, who apparently are not in his view compassionate.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed being called a racist for opposing Bush and McCain’s amnesty program. Then there was Medicare part D.

If Rove was “the architect” behind this then he was responsible for heading in the entirely wrong direction. And there’s something wrong with his OODA loop that convinces him he’s right. There were times during the Bush presidency when I wouldn’t have objected very strongly if the Democrats had tried to impeach him, so dismaying was he at times.

OK look: I am not trying to pick a fight here, but let me point out that it is pretty common when those of us on the right face hard times and a strong challenge to our beliefs for us to form a circular firing squad and start talking about which heretic conservatives/Republicans we are going to drum right out of the party or movement. I saw this after the Presidential elections in 1992, 1996, 2008 and 2012, and after the midterms in 1998 (after we failed to make gains during the Clinton impeachment) and 2006. At best, it forces us to recalibrate the message and revamp our principles; at worst, it makes us look panicky and bitter.

I’m not happy with the way the Bush Administration turned out, but is was a damn sight better than an Al Gore Administration or a John Kerry Administration would have been, and it is a whole lot eff’in better than the Barack Obama Administration has been. I have been reading Amity Shales’ new biography of Calvin Coolidge and I would love nothing more than to get another Silent Cal back in the White House, but it is pretty clear that the Coolidges and the Reagans don’t come along all that often, and even if they did it takes a measure of luck for them to make it all the way to the top.

My message is that we need to stop the infighting. The establishment needs to quit sniping at the Tea Party and the Tea Party needs to quit acting like the establishment has nothing to offer. Let’s acknowledge that some of our favorite conservatives are going to disappoint us on some issues: Rubio on immigration, Christie on federal disaster help, Jindal on the culture war, and so on. Let’s agree to not only search for the most principled candidates, but also the most electable candidates. Every now and then that gives us a Ron Johnson, Ted Cruz, or Nikki Haley, instead of a Todd Akin or a Mike Castle.

Above all, though, let’s not let the infighting distract from the message that the Obama Administration is systematically moving this nation away from its founding principles and to the mediocrity of corporate statism with a huge social welfare net. If not exactly Cuba or North Korea, he’s trying to make us another Belgium or Portugal. We need to spend out efforts attacking this, not each other. Here endeth my rant.

JVW #44 – you have expressed what I have been thinking for a while, and you have expressed it well !

As a mere humble fresh-off-the-boat (albeit last millennium) immigrant-become-resident-alien, it is disconcerting to see how many otherwise-intelligent folk here are swayed into attacking insufficiently-pure conservatives when the increasingly-corrupt current Administration is making more and more of a mess of this country and our economy …

Yup, Dubya shoulda vetoed some of the stuff from the final Congress of his second term … what does that have to do with the *fact* that the current Administration is night and day (and the next night too) worse for this country and our economy ?

happyfeet can be cute, some of the time, but his recitation of MSM talking points just emphasises the central point of my comment here !

JVW, I don’t think it’s “infighting” to point out that when you actually look at Rove’s track record it’s no where near as impressive as his reputation would lead one to believe.

With all due respect, Steve57, I don’t know that I could have run winning gubernatorial and Presidential campaigns. George W. Bush had many outstanding qualities, but there were also plenty of personality quirks that could have easily derailed his candidacy. The fact that Rove skillfully brought him through four winning elections is pretty impressive to me.

mg, then by all means good luck winning statewide elections with candidates like Christine O’Donnell, Linda McMahon, Todd Akins, Tom Tancredo, and Sharon Angle. You’ll need a lot of things to break your way to win with that lot.

In the end Romney lost because 1) his GOTV process was broken and/or sabotaged and 2) the crazy end of the evangelical spectrum couldn’t vote for a Mormon and stayed home. Both these factors dragged all GOP candidates down.

I think it was funny watching the liars spin the lack of white voters as “minorities are a growing voting block”. Fact is that millions of Republicans who voted for McCain for crying out loud didn’t bother to show up. If Romney had got even McCain’s numbers he would have won.

Rove had nothing to do with it, really. Neither did the Tea Party, as Romney was a lot closer to TP principles than McCain ever was.

Kevin M., your comment turns out to be based on turnout figures that were not final. Romney did as well as McCain among voters in general, and better in some classes like independants. Obama just did barely enough better to edge out a win.

I know you know all this but in all the current confusion I just seek to remind you.

HotAir on Moonbeam’s irrational exuberance:

“in light of the still higher taxes on the wealthy for which the state voted in November, certain taxpayers were paying off portions of their bills early in order to get some of their income off of the books before the start of the new year — meaning that January’s surge will be offset by an April dip. Oh, how the optimistic budgetary cookies crumble, especially when you’re counting on a highly graduated tax system to not severely alter people’s financial behaviors. California has been hoping to make up for years of multibillion dollar budget shortfalls with Brown’s budgeting scheme, but as Reuters pointed out last month, it relies on the wealthier getting wealthier, as well as an improving economy and high-earners sticking around to pay those heightened taxes — none of which seem like particularly safe bets.”

Neither Rove, nor Romney nor McCain are anywhere close to TEA Party principles in any way, shape or form.

I did not call any of them Tea Party, and particularly not “value voters” Rove or “Gang of Weasels” McCain.

But, depending on what you call the TP, Romney/Ryan was closer to it than any Republican ticket since Reagan. To me, the Tea Party is about balanced budgets, low taxes and smaller government and really has no position one way or the other on social issues. A lot like the folks who voted for Perot in ’92.

SPQR, yes, I was working from memory and they ran up the numbers later further than I thought.

Spain isn’t making it, debt 88% of GDP 2012 will be 94% end of 2013 is all over the news. Unfortunately that does not count the regions, which double it, or the banks, add 50%. 300 government officials stand indicted of corruption. Tipping point could be anything at all.

Uh, excuse me Gary, but I listed those names precisely because these were Tea Party backed candidates who failed to win statewide elections. You come back to me with Mitt Romney, Scott Brown, and Tommy Thompson, all of whom actually won a statewide election. Whose point are you trying to prove, mine?

Are you playing the old “It’s better to be really, really principled and get your ass kicked in the election and live under liberal rule than to actually compromise a bit and elect someone you agree with 75% of the time”? ‘Cause that is a one-way ticket to loserville, my man.

O’Donnell and Angle can be placed at the TEA doormat, but remember, Rove showed up in DE and announced, FreedomWorks attending, how the primary would be fought, that Castle was the anointed because he stood the best chance of winning.

I recall reading a story about all the contractors to the Romney campaign who did not effectively use the mountain of donations and spent their efforts selling GOTV products instead of actually devoting themselves to winning.

Ace suggested this was about securing a paycheck.

Is it unfair to believe that a Tea Partier’s campaign would be more devoted, albeit less slick? There are a lot of entrenched folks who make a career in the political sector who I have a difficult time trusting, even if they say they agree with me on most issues. I am concerned they are just staking out enough of a position to be better than democrats while giving themselves an excuse ‘bipartisanship’ for not actually solving anything. See 2001-2006.

Fact is that millions of Republicans who voted for McCain for crying out loud didn’t bother to show up. If Romney had got even McCain’s numbers he would have won.

Comment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 2/19/2013 @ 6:09 pm

Romney got slightly more votes than McCain. If you exclude CA, where Republicans voters have apparently thrown in the towel, his out performance vs. McCain increases. Some of Romney’s total must have been new voters so there were still probably some McCain voters who stayed home or voted for Obama but it wasn’t this 4 million number that erroneously was heard right after the election.

During this dustup Rove has even laid claim to working for, even running, the 1980 Texas’ Reagan campaign. Just a flat out lie as Texans have politely informed us.

The reasons for the loss of Rove’s early pick as 2012 POTUS are little disputed. The Brownshirts hit the streets early, banged on doors, told supporters there was an election, what the ward and precinct was, and had their unreliables vote early.

Listen. We can all sit around and debate about why Romney lost. We can argue about the future of the conservative movement. We can all enjoy taking pot shots at Carl Rove (and believe me, this is one my most favorite past times). But every single one of us knows exactly what we need to do to fix the giant pothole of shit that we’re all sitting in.

gary gulrud #89 and daleyrocks #94 – did the “2 Million poor conservatives who saw no change in their own circumstances on the horizon” who stayed home and thus didn’t vote for Romney not realise that they simply guaranteed the fulfilment of their own prophecy ?

Johnson from Wisconsin also was not never was Tea Party – Tea PArty claimed him supported him

This is quite wrong. I attended a handful of Wisconsin Tea Parties that year and Johnson spoke at all of them. He definitely kept the tenets of the Tea Party in Washington. Don’t know why anyone would deny that he’s one of the Tea Party Senators with Rand Paul and Rubio.

You know this because you think the GOP is all about anti-butt sechs, fetuses, testing people for meanness, undocumented aliens, and warring on teh wimmynses like teh media sez.

Mr. Feets is interesting because there are streaks of liberalism in him, meaning he’s typical of a percentage of the electorate. Therefore, I can easily see a bit of squish coming out of such people on any number of occasions (such as at the polling booth on election day), which I don’t say pejoratively — although I don’t care for it in its modern-day form — but merely descriptively.

That has to be kept in mind, because a major opinion poll I just read online indicates that left-leaning biases continue to dumb down a good portion of the populace, well after November’s election. Such a phenomenon deserves as much of the blame as much as anything else, including what Mitt Romney did or didn’t do, or what Karl Rove did or didn’t do, etc. IOW, the idiocy of liberal, self-entitled sentiment in the human condition — transcendent in time and place — deserves as much scrutiny as anything or anyone else.

gary – I’m not a polemicist you moron. You love to spend your day gushing bile over the past while offering no suggestions for the future. I call that a waste of time.

Having Democrats laugh while conservatives/Republicans vomit all over themselves arguing who should and shouldn’t pick candidates when it is actually the voters who pick the winners of primaries is just more fun than I can take sometimes. We just need to stifle dissent and take away choices and do things the autocratic way. Keep things pure, so to speak.

Therefore, I can easily see a bit of squish coming out of such people on any number of occasions

The problem is that he isn’t squishing. He actually has different principles than you and I have. He’s actually pretty consistent about his principles.

So when squishing is a bad thing, and we cannot be a majority without practically all of us squishing on a lot of things, we run into a problem. I think we need to prioritize and get the spending fixed while putting most other issues on the back burner on a national level. Get the budget balanced first.

Having Democrats laugh while conservatives/Republicans vomit all over themselves arguing who should and shouldn’t pick candidates when it is actually the voters who pick the winners of primaries is just more fun than I can take sometimes.

This is frustrating, but it’s right. Romney beat the other candidates. That’s unfortunate as I think other candidates were better positioned to criticize Obama, but I have no idea how it would have worked out on election day. I strongly suspect Obama would have won anyway because of moocher votes. If anyone has a solution to that I’m all ears.

Perhaps having conservatives own all the printing presses and all the television stations, along with controlling the education system (beginning with preschool and ending with graduate school) for 40 years would produce a conservative candidate. We are porked people.

The problem is that he isn’t squishing. He actually has different principles than you and I have.

Dustin, what I mean by “squish” is a person who is more likely to split his (or her) ballot — perhaps splitting for splitting’s sake — mainly because such a person becomes nervous if conservatism and right-leaning politicians become too ascendant. It may have absolutely nothing to do with whether a person’s principles are pliable and unformed or not (or what some people may think of when talking about “squish”).

Such a person will grumble about liberal politicians and policies, but it’s also very likely he or she will not help prevent things from falling further apart based on the belief that one can always vote with one’s feet—ie, “I’ll move to Colorado if things get really bad,” or “I’ll move to New Zealand if things get really bad.”

There are plenty of squishes throughout California right now who aren’t happy with the state (its economy and one-party leftist politics), and who’ve therefore relocated to other parts of the US, regrettably bringing their squishiness with them.

It wasn’t just he didn’t connect as an emotional peer he had no vision to impart to these people,

Again, keep in mind that left-leaning sentiment is a major facet (or flaw) of human nature, evident throughout many societies, many peoples. It’s more polluted and corrupt today than ever before, and to be unaware of how corrosive it is, is analogous to theorizing that a coastal town will survive the impact of a big tsunami if it’s built strongly enough (ie, if a Republican or non-liberal candidate fits some presumed ideal or quality).

latimes.com, February 20, 2013:

President Obama goes into a busy spring of legislative battles holding the upper hand over congressional Republicans on key issues, a newly released poll shows.

In the fight over automatic spending cuts that are scheduled to begin March 1, Obama has a dual advantage: Almost half of Americans surveyed said they would blame the GOP if the cuts took place, compared with fewer than one-third who said they would blame Obama. Moreover, an overwhelming majority, 79%, say that additional tax increases should be part of any new deficit reduction deal, compared with only 19% who side with the Republican position that the deficit should be reduced solely with spending cuts.

The figures come from a new survey by the Pew Research Center, the first done as part of a new collaboration with USA Today.

The public was less united on whether other legislative goals were essential. Just over half gave that rating to immigration reform, another issue on which Obama holds a strong advantage in the poll… Over the last two years, the percentage favoring an enforcement-only approach has dropped, and Obama’s approval rating on handling immigration issues has risen.

Separately, a new Bloomberg poll finds that 55% of Americans approve of Obama’s job performance, the strongest support that poll has found since September 2009. By contrast, 35% held a favorable view of the Republicans, the lowest level since September 2009.

latimes.com, February 20: Californians’ optimism about the state’s future is down slightly since September, but is still higher than it has been for most of the past decade, according to a new Field Poll. The survey found that 48% of registered voters say California is heading in the right direction compared with 44% who believe the state is on the wrong track. That’s down slightly from a September survey in which 52% of state voters said they were confident in the state’s direction.

State voters give high marks to President Obama, whose approval ratings are higher than at any point since his first year in office. Sixty-two percent of those surveyed said they approve of the job the president is doing.

Obama’s job rating reached a low point in September 2011, when the Field Poll put his approval rating at 46%.

California’s view of Congress has also improved slightly, but is still generally negative. Just 23% of Californians surveyed said they approve of its performance. About three times as many — 68% — disapprove of the legislative body’s performance.

^ I often point to France, Greece or Venezuela — or certainly Argentina — as examples of how bad things can get or become, in which much of the electorate says nothing but, “why, me worry?”

One thing the people decrying the “infighting” or the calls for “purity” need to understand, but don’t appear to, is that there is a basic contradiction in the Republican party. Angelo Codevilla explains it well in this Forbes article:

On January 1, 2013 one third of Republican congressmen, following their leaders, joined with nearly all Democrats to legislate higher taxes and more subsidies for Democratic constituencies. Two thirds voted no, following the people who had elected them. For generations, the Republican Party had presented itself as the political vehicle for Americans whose opposition to ever-bigger government financed by ever-higher taxes makes them a “country class.” Yet modern Republican leaders, with the exception of the Reagan Administration, have been partners in the expansion of government, indeed in the growth of a government-based “ruling class.” They have relished that role despite their voters. Thus these leaders gradually solidified their choice to no longer represent what had been their constituency, but to openly adopt the identity of junior partners in that ruling class. By repeatedly passing bills that contradict the identity of Republican voters and of the majority of Republican elected representatives, the Republican leadership has made political orphans of millions of Americans. In short, at the outset of 2013 a substantial portion of America finds itself un-represented, while Republican leaders increasingly represent only themselves.

…The ever-growing U.S. government has an edgy social, ethical, and political character. It is distasteful to a majority of persons who vote Republican and to independent voters, as well as to perhaps one fifth of those who vote Democrat. The Republican leadership’s kinship with the socio-political class that runs modern government is deep.

…Thus public opinion polls confirm that some two thirds of Americans feel that government is “them” not “us,” that government has been taking the country in the wrong direction, and that such sentiments largely parallel partisan identification: While a majority of Democrats feel that officials who bear that label represent them well, only about a fourth of Republican voters and an even smaller proportion of independents trust Republican officials to be on their side.

…The civilization of the ruling class does not concede that those who resist it have any moral or intellectual right, and only reluctantly any civil right, to do so. Resistance is illegitimate because it can come only from low motives. President Obama’s statement that Republican legislators – and hence the people who elect them – don’t care whether “seniors have decent health care…children have enough to eat” is typical.

Republican leaders neither parry the insults nor vilify their Democratic counterparts in comparable terms because they do not want to beat the ruling class, but to join it in solving the nation’s problems. How did they come to cut such pathetic figures?

As Prof. Codevilla points out in another part of his article, the GOP leadership never defends its base from charges of being “greedy, racist, violent, ignorant extremists.” But when they won’t even defend themselves from those charges how could you expect that?

The truth of the matter is that they believe it to be true. Which is why McCain and other members of the GOP leadership happily joined in with them calling their own base racists the last time they tried to pass an amnesty under Bush.

The fact is the establishment GOP is just as guilty as the Democrats in doing the two things that have destroyed Constitutional government. They’ve usurped the powers of the states and concentrated power in DC, and they’ve delegated legislative power to unelected executive branch departments.

This is why Karl Rove is no conservative when he brags about “no child left behind” as great election strategy for Bush’s reelection. Because again, that was the Federal government concentrating more power within itself to take over what should be a state and local function. And it delegated regulatory authority, which has the force of law, to the Department of Education.

Saying that’s not conservative isn’t a matter of opinion. It is a fact. Because if what you wish to conserve is Constitutional government, and big “C” conservatives say they do, then you don’t run around destroying federalism and the separation of powers.

I don’t recall exactly at what point the Republican establishment became an advocate for big government against the wishes of its base, but its been quite awhile.

Boehner isn’t “caving” to Obama when he agrees that sequestration will cause “deep” and “painful” cuts to government. He believes it. Which is insane because as Rand Paul points out all sequestration means is that over the next 10 years we’ll spend $44 trillion instead of $45T. But government is Boehner’s constituency.

McCain isn’t “caving” when he votes for Hagel or demands more gun control. It’s what he wants to do. Like with Boehner, you can’t really call it “caving” if it isn’t against his will.

Big government Republicanism isn’t conservative. That’s why Bush (although it was probably Rove’s idea) ran as a “compassionate conservative.” Conservatives want to cut the size of government. Big government Republicans don’t think cutting government is compassionate; expanding government is.

They just run as if they want to cut the size of government. And that’s the problem.